“The tears flowed and the sense of pride kicked in”

Kris Liggatt provides his account of the Spireites Football for Life team’s charity cycle ride from the HUB at the Technique Stadium to Skegness…

We had a few people come down to the stadium to see us off. There was Joe Rowley, Alan Wilkinson, Carl Cappellano and Nathan Khan.

We set off at 6am and the cycle was fine to begin with. We were ahead of schedule and feeling great by the time we’d reached our first checkpoint, near Clumber Park.

The weather then took a turn and the temperature seemed to drop. Then came the rain and by the time we’d reached the other side of the A1, near East Markham, we were getting drenched in freezing cold rain.

Although the temperature wasn’t great, the rain wasn’t going to stop us. We were all still hungry and determined to carry on – this for us just emphasised the fact of mental health – so we cracked on and got to Lincoln city centre where we managed to get ourselves fed and watered by Steve from McDonald’s.

It was a very nice gesture from them. We stood in a doorway of a closed shop trying to keep warm and eat our McDonald’s, but all of us were shaking and absolutely freezing.

Once we’d managed to get the food down us, we carried on and headed out of Lincoln on a national cycle route.

We got to meet Ben at Bardney Heritage Centre around 1.30pm to stock ourselves up with drinks etc and we mostly used his car for a quick warm!

We then carried on, with the next checkpoint being around 19 miles away, which would hopefully be our last stop before Skegness.

The weather got colder and colder, the wind picked up and the rain was so cold. We’d never felt anything like it! Everything at this point was against us and we had 35 miles left to tackle.

The route we had taken wasn’t the best as some of the cycle routes were massively unsuitable for the bikes. We had to take some huge diversions and find our own way round.

When we got to Spilsby Road, just 15 miles away from Skegness, Nathan couldn’t take anymore. The poor lad was broken, the weather had taken its toll and he looked really ill, so the best decision was for him not to continue.

He sat in Ben’s car and kept as warm as he could and waited for Sam to come with the van. Myself, James and Jordan continued, although we were absolutely broken.

I pushed myself to the absolute limit. It had been a constant mental battle since we had got wet and it was horrendous. I cannot begin to describe how cold we was.

We were around ten miles away from Skegness when I felt like I was going to pass out. It was so cold, our bodies wouldn’t stop shaking and no matter what we did, we just couldn’t get warm.

Jordan and I decided we could not go any further, so our bikes went in the van and we tried to get warm from the heat of the cars.

James refused to give up, he said that he didn’t feel too bad and that he would make the last ten miles by himself.

He was adamant he was going to do this for mental health as he really wanted to show us what could be done. He proceeded on his journey and the van followed closely behind him so we knew he was okay.

The rest of us headed to the pier to wait for the hero to arrive. When we got changed, you could literally wring our clothes out. Even our pants we were that wet and the water that came out of our clothes was freezing.

James came down the home straight as proud as can be, around 40 minutes after we’d left him. The finish was very emotional – none of us could believe what we had achieved.

The conditions were atrocious and we had battled in every way imaginable since 10am that morning. James Roddis was the hero of the day and did everyone proud.

We, all together as a team, made a massive difference. We stood up for everyone out there with mental illness.

As you can imagine, the tears flowed and the sense of pride kicked in. Once we’d taken photos and changed, it was back to the stadium, stopping for food on the way.

It was an amazing experience for a fantastic cause, but believe me when I say this, the weather was the worst I’ve ever experienced. If it wasn’t for that, then we’d have all completed it and more than likely got there a lot earlier, too.

The riders were:
James Roddis
Kris Liggatt
Jordan Wade
Nathan Droniuk

Driver of the support car:
Ben Homer

Driver of the van:
Sam Tighe

Spireites Football for Life is a long-running project, providing weekly football coaching sessions aimed at adults experiencing mental health issues. To find out more, please click here.

The funds raised from the charity cycle ride will go to mental health charities. To donate, please click here.